Things George W. Bush is guilty of causing...

Global Warming
Global Cooling
War
Terrorism
Economic depression
The National Debt
The extinction of the dinosaurs
The cancellation of "Firefly"
acne
the pro sports steroid scandal
torture
espionage
high oil prices

I know there are more, but those are the ones I can think of offhand. Oh wait! He made me buy a really shitty car! How could I forget that one?

[edit: Oh, and can't prove it but I think he went back in time and painted that Dogs Playing Poker painting]

I like the dogs playing poker.



I always wonder how Volpone can hate and mistrust "libruls" so much, yet have no idea why people have a problem with Wal*Mart, scientologists, or baba.

POTN would have loved this thread.

You know, I admit that I may be a bit out-of-touch with conservative America, since I work in academia with a lot of liberals - some of whom are crunchy hippies, some of whom are borderline communists - but most of whom are just hard-working people trying to do good things.

But we've had to suffer massive cuts to NIH funding, thanks to Bush and Co. Entire laboratories have had to stop their work on cancer and HIV because of these cuts. People I know. Research I know. Has just stopped.

And yet we still watch billions of American dollars, not to mention thousands of American lives, circle the drain in the fucking toilet that is Iraq.

I will never understand why so many conservatives determinedly dig their heels in and pretend GW Bush is beyond reproach. He is not.

And he is certainly not the first American president to have to endure some rather severe criticism on his way out of office.

It feels like he's fumbled through his ill-gotten presidency and made a lot of very short-sighted decisions. I, for one, am glad he is leaving and hope our next president - Democrat or Republican - can fix some of what he's done.

Take off the rose-colored glasses, already. He has not been the greatest president. He does not even come close to greatness.

Who said he was great?

Many of us don't really like him.

He's not above reproach.

It's just you idiots on the left try and pretend the world was a utopia before he became President. That nothing was wrong with anything. No funding was cut for anything.



Of course when you all go on such a rant of stupidity about Bush being guilty of everything under the fucking sun lots of people are going to step up and defend him. So it makes him look like he is above reproach with conservatives.

Bush Derangement Syndrome is your problem. See a doctor.

But sooooo many of you really, really do.

Yeah, you know better than I do....what I think of Bush.

Idiot.

It sounds to me like these facilities didn't prepare themselves for when funding dried up. There are plenty of grants, foundations and etc. out there that provide much financial support to worthy research.

Links?

No really, you should provide some links. Y'know, since you know more about obtaining funding than all those researchers. Maybe you can give them a hand.

No, but you sure as hell make it sound like I speak for all conservatives.

No. I don't. I was merely pointing out that many conservatives (hence the collective term "you") continue to stand behind GWB and rabidly defend every decision he makes. And it's not just a tiny minority. There are a LOT of conservatives that do so.

If that's not you, then fine. But you are still retarded.

Actually I know quite a lot about grants and funding streams for things like that.

I never made any comment about how widespread NIH funds are. But, one thing is for sure and is something that most in the non-profit world (including academia) is that no single funding stream is 100% reliable. If that is what they think or believe they are doing a disservice to themselves.

As for the links that 14th Doctor asked for in typical garamet style, those are very simply accessed via most any foundations website, or for matter google. 14th Doctor visit google and type in RFP, or foundation and see what you come up with. As for me, I learned that it isn't worth my bother after the Obama threads to bother presenting you with any sources or information because as you stated in one of your excuses for not providing sources you will ignore them, or cast them aside.

14th Doctor, I'm still waiting for you to provide sources for your claims about US churches focusing on race in the same manner that Obama's church does.

So... no links then?

That's too bad, those people really could have used the money. Your expert knowledge is going to waste.

Define 'massive cuts.'

Because in 2004, 2005, and 2007, the NIH gained an increase in its budget.

It recieved a .1% decrease in its budget in 2006.

Granted, that's a bit of a shock coming from the huge increases from 1999-2002, when the NIH budget doubled.

I certainly support science, and I can certainly understand the point of view that the Iraq War caused waste that could have been used elsewhere.

But I also understand that from 2004 to 2007, the NIH budget increased, not decreased.

So 'massive cuts' is a bit of hyperbole.

Not keeping up with previously established increases in funding is more like it.

Hmm... come to think of it we can add 'massive cuts to NIH funding' to the list of things George W. Bush is guilty of causing.

Edit: This is interesting.

Prior to 2006, NIH grants were allowed to be kept private. They changed the ruling so that in 2006 any grants given by taxpayer funded initiatives had to have their results public, openly displayed in a online database.

It's amazing that tax payer granted research was private prior to that point. If I'm reading this correctly only 12% of research was made public.

Fuck that.

http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/59/2/219

If they can't be bothered to hire a competent grant writer, then fuck em.
They're too damned stupid to be wasting taxpayer dollars on in the first place.

I have yet to see actual cuts coming out of the federal government. All I've seen are slow downs in growth.

It's hard to give someone like yourself any credence when more often than not you're citing instances of things NOT under the control of the Presidency to begin with... Like, say, the Budget?

You know, those things that conservatives are so pissed at him about because, well, he won't veto budgets that have Too Much Pork in em?

That's what it amounts too. That is what I do for a living. I look at those things and for those things daily. My job if I want to continue to make money is find funding streams for different agencies that can benefit them and their programming and services.

Many agencies will not hire grant writers full time because you can't charge to grants for the services of a grant writer. That has to come from cash reserves an agency may have or via revenue generated separate from any grants already providing funding to an agency.

"Departmental Grant Writer" was one of my many hats at that college job I had.

Ah a comrade in arms.

The stagnation in NIH funding has far-reaching consequences for academic and clinical research. The cut may only be 0.1%, but that translates to a 3.8% decrease, when adjusted for inflation. Science is expensive, and it isn't getting any less so.

There's an interesting Perspective article in the [url"http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/16/1665"]NEJM[/url], too. Here's an interesting bit:

"Whereas national defense spending has reached approximately $1,600 per capita, federal spending for biomedical research now amounts to about $97 per capita — a rather modest investment in "advancing the health, safety, and well-being of our people." This downturn is more severe than any we have faced previously, since it comes on the heels of the doubling of the budget and threatens to erode the benefits of that investment. It takes many years for institutions to develop investigators skilled in modern research techniques and to build the costly, complicated infrastructure necessary for biomedical research. Rebuilding the investigator pool and the infrastructure after a downturn is expensive and time-consuming and weakens the benefits of prior funding. This situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon: the resources required for the war in Iraq and for hurricane relief, along with the erosion of the tax base by the current administration's fiscal policies, are expected to have long-term, far-reaching effects."

Last I checked, the "current administration's fiscal policies" are pretty much set by the President. So yeah. I blame Bush.

As for seeking funding elsewhere, that's a lovely dream... but there is precious little academic research being funded by those with deep pockets in private industry. Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies are not interested in developing, for example, vaccines. Because vaccines are money-losing operations. They are interested in developing drugs that can be sold for big profits.

Academic institutions absolutely need to find funding elsewhere. This is a wakeup call. But in the meantime, those of us with work in-progress based on funds we were counting on are facing cutbacks in THE EXISTING GRANTS. Which means that valuable experiments cannot be done or need to be postponed indefinitely because the money is no longer there.

That is exactly what my initial point was. Acedamia is not the only area that has fallen pray to being apathetic regarding their funding. It is partially to government's fault. They kept doing what amounted to automatic renewals for so long, the groups receiving those funds got lazy.

Some agencies at times have said they do not want to many grants. That to is in my opinion a foolish thing to do. It never hurts having additional funding streams.

Edit - to Phil_r:

I'd agree with all that based on my limited reading, and I can certainly understand how cutbacks in your own field can really appear far greater than they are. My field is screaming bloody murder about losing IT jobs to India, and I've been one of the guys screaming at times.

But not personally involved in the NIH stuff, even adjusted for inflation 3.8% doesn't strike me as qualifying for the term 'massive cutback.'

This year I watched 33% of my team get laid off as the jobs got shipped elsewhere. 3% just doesn't reach me at a gut level.

Well. This is an interesting turn of events.

Increased rates of hypertension in Democrats.
Chalk that one up to Bush.

The difference is that IT jobs going to India may hit home for you, but those jobs are still being done, somewhere.

It's nearly 4%. And that may not seem like much (and fine - I overstated the cutbacks by initially calling them "massive"), but it has far-reaching repercussions.

When American academic research stops due to lack of funds, then it just stops. Because no other country in the world funds research like we do, researchers can't just pick up stakes and go elsewhere. When the research stops, the investigators that lose funds have to go somewhere, and they usually abandon the academic gig and go into private industry in the U.S., to develop yet another little blue pill so old farts can have erections, and yet another SSRI to soothe neurotic soccer moms.

This "small" percentage cut-back doesn't reach you at the gut level, now. But if the funding continues to decrease, scientists lose more than just jobs. We lose a lot of ground. The AIDS epidemic isn't exactly subsiding. And major breakthroughs in treatments for other diseases cannot be made without funding.

Bush turned me into a newt!





I got better.

Are their funding streams being eliminated phil?